After an innocent man is arrested for murder in a rich family’s horse stable, it’s up to Chuck Chan to figure out who’s the real killer. If you’re looking for English-set B-movie cliches, the gang’s all here. There’s the tuxedo party complete with a comic relief drunkard, the Cockney maids, the sledgehammer red herrings, the big house full of shady aristocrats and the tidy resolution. This is most notable for featuring Ray Milland in an early role and for being one of only two of the first six Charlie Chan sound films still known to exist. Perhaps not coincidentally, both surviving films also feature future big names, Bela Lugosi in The Black Camel and Milland. The other four films are considered lost, but I bet Charlie Chan could find them.
The real question here: How racist is this movie? My answer: Less than you might think. While the very prospect of Swedish actor Warner Oland yellow’ing up and doing a Chinese imitation full of hesitant English that’s played for laughs and aphorisms ripped straight off of old bamboo strips looks offensive today, there is a tiny sprinkle of subversion here. It’s not much. It’s not worth an essay. This is not an ambitious movie. There is no motive or message here. Still, over time, Oland’s smiling, puttering Chan looks less like an earnest stereotype and more like a good detective—and Chan is your classic pulp super-sleuth—who disarms his suspects by taking advantage of Chinese stereotypes. He comes off to them like an Eastern man confused by the Western world, someone they almost can’t believe is supposed to be a top crime-solver. Meanwhile, Chan’s got his eyes on everybody and always gets his man.
Or at least that’s a thought that might cross your mind at 3 AM, which is the best time to watch old low-budget detective flicks.